Ms Emer Egan:

They do not have to have a teaching qualification currently.

On the training and provision of teachers, one cannot be recognised by the Teaching Council of Ireland as a teacher of SPHE and there is no undergraduate course in SPHE but many of the teachers who are involved in SPHE will have access to training programmes, primarily through our professional development service for teachers. In the past, our National Educational Psychological Service would have put in place substantial training programmes for teachers and they provided a foundation for much of the early implementation of SPHE and RSE in schools.